In Texas, Prop 2 scare tactics lost

Dallas Morning News | Mark Davis:

"As for the priorities listed by Prop 2 opponents, issues of hospital visitation, survivorship and property rights are taken care of with a combination of basic decency and a good estate attorney."

There is plenty of evidence that gays and lesbians are too often the victims of a lack of "basic decency" on the part of heterosexual society. Asking them to depend on the basic decency of others is denying them benefits and privileges that heterosexual couples enjoy, not only through the basic decency of others, but through codified law.

Prop 2 gives heterosexual couples no new rights, no new benefits, no new privileges. It is purely a negative law, denying such benefits to others based solely on sexual orientation. How do you sell such a proposition to voting Texans, the majority of whom are fair and not discriminatory? With scare tactics. You convince voters that unless this proposition is passed, all sorts of terrible things will happen. Polygamy. Group marriage. Incest. And, yes, gay marriage. See the recent column by Tina Benkiser (chair of the Republican Party of Texas) for a classic example of such scare tactics. Despite Mark Davis' headline to the contrary, scare tactics clearly carried this election.